Bathing Box WhitingAlan Mc Fayden | First Published: June 2005

One good thing about fishing at Inverloch is that there is a ready made supply of bass yabbies around the entrance of Screw Creek. They can be pumped at low tide and many locals reckon that they are second to none. They don’t keep too long, not much more than a day; so don’t take any more than your immediate needs.

Michael Cawley from Rod Bendings Fishing Shop at Inverloch says that the inlet has been good one day and not so good the next. There are still good numbers of whiting, silvers and the odd gummy shark being caught around the bathing boxes on both sides of low water. Further up at Maher’s Landing, there have been quite a few silvers, salmon and mullet caught around the ‘A’ frame house which is just a few hundred metres from the boat ramp. It seems that pippies, whitebait and squid have been the best baits.

There has been a huge seal in the Tarwin River recently. It seems to be making the area around the bridge his home. When he makes an appearance the fish do a vanishing act. However, the big fellow hasn’t stopped a large school of mullet that have been taking sand worms and bass yabbies on the run off tide. Perch have also been around in good numbers and Wonthaggi angler Graham Gray has been taking home some very nice bags up to 33cm. Graham even managed to land a few bream around the 33cm mark just above the highway bridge.

There are still reasonable numbers of whiting being taken to 37cm at Shallow Inlet on bass yabbies and pippies. Silvers are also well represented along with mullet and flathead. Greg Buckland who runs the General Store at Sandy Point says that he is a bit surprised that the whiting are still around but no one is complaining. There have been whoppers to the 50cm mark taking pippies and strips of squid. Greg says that the inexperienced angler should always pay attention to their rods, especially when out in a boat. Recently there have been instances where equipment has suddenly disappeared over the side, never to be seen again. Of course the idea is to have rod holders correctly fitted to your boat to eliminate this risk.

At the time of compiling this report there had been a large school of salmon in the area. For some reason they’ve been taking only lures and ignoring a variety of baits that have been presented. When the salmon appear, so too will those very big silvers that really give anglers a great workout on the light gear.